oD Drug Policy Forum: Front Line Report - Week of January 5th 2012

2011 was a watershed year in drug policy all over the globe. The American and Canadian governments seemed to embrace status quo prohibition, while the citizens of both nations showed increasing support for reform laws, particularly with medical cannabis. Some countries in Europe moved towards legalization, while the Netherlands surprised everyone by taking steps to forbid access of coffee shops to foreigners. Meanwhile, things continue to spiral out of control in Latin America, leaving no country untouched by drug violence

The new year is upon us and 2011 is a year for the
history books. But we can't let it go without recognizing the biggest
global drug policy stories of the year. From the horrors of the Mexican
drug wars to the growing clamor over the failures of prohibition, from
the poppy fields of Afghanistan and the Golden Triangle to the coca
fields of the Andes, from European parliaments to Iranian gallows, drug
prohibition and its consequences were big news this year.

Dr. Richard Lessard, director of public health, suggested that
fixed sites be set up in Hochelaga-Maisonneuve, downtown and an area
near St. Urbain and Prince Arthur Sts. The mobile unit would move
around St. Henri and the city's southwest sector.

"We are convinced – and all the scientific studies back us up
on this point – that supervised injection sites do not create new
problems," Lessard told The Gazette. "On the contrary, they
reduce the problem of syringes found on the streets and in the parks,
and they reduce the number of overdose deaths."

The Pentagon's Counter Narco-Terrorism Program Office (CNTPO) – a
technically unknown entity created in 1995 – just announced a $3
billion contract for U.S.-funded anti-narcotics operations around the
world, including Afghanistan, Pakistan, Colombia, and now also
Mexico.

The bids were open to private security firms starting Nov. 9 and
the budget breakdown by category includes as much as $950 million for
"operations, logistics, and minor construction," up to $975
million for training foreign forces, $875 million for "information"
tasks, and $240 million for "program and programmatic support,"
as posted in the official announcement.

The US Supreme Court has approved drug dog sniffs in several
other major cases. Two of those involved dogs that detected drugs
during routine traffic stops. In another, a dog found drugs in
airport luggage. A fourth involved a drug-laden package in transit.

The Florida case is different because it involves a private
residence. The high court has repeatedly emphasized that a home is
entitled to greater privacy than cars on the road or a suitcase in an
airport. In another major ruling, the justices decided in 2001 that
police could not use thermal imaging technology to detect heat from
marijuana grow operations from outside a home because the equipment
could also detect lawful activity.

DEA agents and security officials in
Costa Rica say the country is increasingly favored by the cartels as
a warehouse for US-bound cocaine from Colombia. But while other
Central American nations are deploying their armies to battle the
traffickers in cities and remote jungles, Costa Rica has no such
fighting force, having abolished its military in 1948 in favor of
increased spending on health care and education. Its underfunded
police agencies have outdated equipment and little experience taking
on organized crime.

The daily newspaper Reforma, one of the
nation’s most respected independent news outlets, reported 12,359
drug-related killings in 2011, a 6.3 percent increase compared with
the previous year. There were 2,275 drug killings in 2007, Reforma
said.

Guatemalan Interior Minister Carlos
Menocal said the Mexican cartel has prepared its operations by doing
business with a gang in his country led by Juan Alberto Ortiz Lopez,
nicknamed "Chamale," who, before his arrest in March, was
identified by the United States as the most important trafficker in
Guatemala.

"What we have found is that Chamale has links to the Sinaloa
cartel," Menocal told The Associated Press. Those links include
coordinating the processing or "cooking" of meth, he said.

"If tolerance ends or gets limited in the Netherlands, then
politicians all over the world will say things like 'Tolerance failed
in Holland,' and use that as an excuse to enforce their anti-cannabis
propaganda, opinions and laws," well-known Dutch cannabis
blogger Peter Lunk told
Toke of the Town.

'Operation
Audacious' was a success, according to the Greater Manchester
Police and others. A success in that arrests have been made, public
calls for action on street dealers have been heard and acted upon,
and in that a clear message has been sent.

But two important questions arise: Are these really measures of
success in relation to drugs? And what about tomorrow?

Amnesty said it began to receive
credible reports of a new wave of drug executions in the middle of
2010, including reports of mass executions at Vakilabad Prison in
Mashhad, with one, on August 4, 2010, involving at least 89 people.
While Iran officially acknowledged 253 executions in 2010, of which
172 were for drug offenses, Amnesty said it has credible reports of
another 300 executions, "the vast majority believed to be for
drug-related offenses."

Ethan Nadelmann is the founder and executive director of the Drug Policy
Alliance, the leading organization in the United States promoting
alternatives to the war on drugs. Described by Rolling Stone as “the
point man” for drug policy reform efforts, Ethan Nadelmann is widely
regarded as the most prominent proponent of drug policy reform.

In 1985 Anthony Papa was arrested in a New York cocaine sting, and under
the draconian Rockefeller drug laws, was given two 15-to-Life sentences
for the first-time offense of possessing four and a half ounces of
cocaine. This is the amazing story of his arrest and incarceration, and
how in 1997, he eventually won clemency from the Governor of New York.

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